Without a clear strategy, social media marketing can be like shooting in the dark. A well-defined strategy helps you understand your goals, identify your target audience, and determine the best ways to reach and engage them. It ensures that every post, tweet, or story contributes to your overall business objectives. This approach not only amplifies your brand’s reach but also builds meaningful relationships with your audience, driving long-term success.

Mapping the Customer Journey

Once you’ve identified your target audience, the next step is to understand their customer journey. This journey represents the stages a potential customer goes through from awareness to purchase and beyond. Mapping this journey helps you create targeted content that meets your audience’s needs at each stage.

Conducting a social media audit and competitive analysis

Before diving headfirst into your social media strategy, taking stock of where you currently stand is important. A social media audit helps you understand your existing social media presence, what’s working, what’s not, and where there are opportunities for improvement. It provides a baseline to measure future success and ensures your efforts are aligned with your business objectives.

Steps to Conduct a Social Media Audit

1. Inventory Your Social Media Accounts: List all the social media platforms where your brand has a presence. This includes major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and any niche platforms relevant to your industry. Verify and update profile information to ensure consistency and accuracy across all platforms.
   

2. Assess Performance Metrics:
   a. Followers/Connections: Track your audience size on each platform.
   b. Engagement: Measure likes, comments, shares, retweets, and other interactions.
   c. Reach: Determine how many people are seeing your content.
   d. Traffic: Analyse how much traffic is being driven to your website from each platform.
   e. Conversions: Track actions such as form submissions, downloads, or sales generated from social media.
   

3. Evaluate Content Performance:
   a. Identify which types of content (videos, images, articles, infographics) perform best on each platform.
   b. Determine the optimal posting frequency and times for engagement.
   c. Assess the tone, style, and messaging of your top-performing content.
   

4. Analyze Audience Demographics:
   a. Review the demographic data provided by each platform. Understand the age, gender, location, and interests of your audience.
   b. Ensure your content is resonating with the right demographic segments.
   

5. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses:
   a. Highlight areas where you’re performing well and those that need improvement.
   b. Look for gaps in your strategy, such as underperforming platforms or inconsistent branding.

Why Conduct a Competitive Analysis?

Understanding your competitors’ strategies can provide valuable insights and highlight opportunities you might have missed. By analysing what others in your industry are doing, you can learn from their successes and mistakes, differentiate your brand, and stay ahead of the competition.

Steps to Conduct a Competitive Analysis

1. Identify Your Competitors: List your main competitors, including direct competitors (those offering similar products or services) and indirect competitors (those targeting the same audience with different offerings).
   

2. Analyse Their Social Media Presence:
   I. Examine which platforms they are active on.
   II. Look at their follower count and engagement rates.
   III. Identify the types of content they post and how frequently.
   

3. Evaluate Their Content Strategy:
   I. Analyse the themes, tone, and style of their content.
   II. Note which types of content (videos, blog posts, infographics) generate the most
   engagement.
   III. Observe how they interact with their audience and handle customer service issues.
   

4. Assess Their Strengths and Weaknesses:
   I. Identify what your competitors are doing well and areas where they fall short.
   II. Look for gaps or opportunities they might be missing that you can capitalise on.
   

5. Benchmark Your Performance:
   I. Compare your social media metrics with those of your competitors.
   II. Use these benchmarks to set realistic goals and KPIs for your own social media strategy.